Product Reviews

Pigthology

The mixture of creativity and an avenue to put it to use collided in the late 1960’s on the airwaves on the FM radio dial. In England, the opening of creativity let bands intent on Pop chart success focus more on content and musicianship. British youth in the early 1960’s were exposed to American R&B through the U.S. bases in Germany. It was hard and heavy blues and soul and when it came time to translate the sound into their own songs, styles emerged. Blues-Rock became the musical current in England in the late 60’s, early 70’s, the sound becoming marketable in the hands of bands like Humble Pie, Savoy Brown and Cream when they landed on U.S. soil. Blodwyn Pig never received the success overseas that they enjoyed in England when the band formed around the name of Jethro Tull guitarist Mick Abrahams to create a hybrid of blues, rock and jazz in 1968.

Blodwyn Pig gain a bigger appreciation looking back at the band’s sound on the recent release, Pigthology. The compilation gathers remastered versions of their biggest U.K. hits including “Dear Jill”,a track that landed in U.S. theatres in Cameron Crowe’s film Almost Famous. The more well-known songs are based in a hammered blues rock that has uses a sleazy tease in the guitar work, particularly in “Drive Me”. Sitting beside the hits on Pigthology are unreleased tracks that show a decided move towards a more jazz rock hybrid, not in a fusion sense, but a true mixing of the expanded jams of jazz against the hard rhythm bottom of rock. The live “Cosmogification” is a textural masterpiece that layers jams over very structured rhythm lines. “Sly Bones” electrifies big band blues, “Baby Girl” hits a major Soul vein for its rush and “Hound Dog” instrumentally floats down a southern river of sound using harmonica, tambourines and folk blues guitar to line the shores of the song.